El Paso herald., October 12, 1918, HOME EDITION, Cable News and Classified Section, Image 16

About El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931

Image provided by: University of North Texas; Denton, TX

                
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uck i renc
oun
Why I lejoine
Tke Very Interesting Fmale
to tke Last Democratic
Romance of One
T
' IBl
Mrs. Jnlia French Geraghty, Her Dos and the
Chauffeur Husband She Married. She Is
Happy and It Was This Happiness That
Led Young French to Essay a Similar
Adventure in Democracy.
EDWARD TUCK FRENCH la ca his
way to fight the Kaiser and lnci-
dentally to forget ail about the
carriage that made him famous. His fam
ily, the much-harried, trouble-ridden
Le Roy-Stsyvesant-French combination,
breathes easily for the "first time in many
a sad day. Young Mr. French, oddly
enough, has Joined the Tanks, and as he
has to go through the usual training, he Is
sow In southern Pennsylvania, learning
haw to "Treat 'Bm, Hough."
Judging from Mr. French's own accounts
et his romance of the early Summer, life
daring those hectic ten days swam in a
sea of .champagne that is, if life can
swim. At all events, champagne figured
largely in his romance, and one may be
pardoned, perhaps, for assuming that had
there been less champagne there might
have been less romance for Mrs. French.
Bat at the training camp in Pennsylvania
there will be neither "the wine that bub
bles nor the romance that corrodes the
goal to quote from the hero's own words.
Bdward Tuck French's dossier, as filed
with his army application, must have made
aeughtfally interesting reading to the re
cruiting officer. He was born twenty-two
years ago In Newport, Rhode Island. His
father, Amos Tack French, was an only
son of the late Francis Ormonde French,
a wealthy New York cotton broker, and
Df BUea Tuck French, daughter of Amos
raok, a sturdy New Hampshire mill
owner.
His mother was Pauline Stuyvesant Le
Roy, daughter of the late Stuyvesant Le
Boy, of New York and Newport, a million
lire many times over and a direct descend
ant of Peter Stuyvesant of blessed mem
ory. His nearest living relatives, besides his
hastily bat legally wedded wife and his
parents, who were divorced two years ago,
are three brothers, two sisters and his
Hint, Mrs. Elsie French Vanderbilt
His father, by the way. Is living In Paris
with his second wife, who was Miss Mattls
SJesokman, sister of Governor Beeckman,
of Rhode Island.
In the interesting human document In
which Mr. French describes his marriage
and how he came to Join the tanks, he
makes several scathing comments on the
Newport in which he grew up. No young
ynnn of the smartest colony in America is
better qualified than he to discuss its fail
ings. He grew to manhood in the swiftest
corner of the colony. To be sure, he was
not born to this particular corner, for the
Frenches and Le Roys are the bluest of
Mae-blooded stock, with great wealth, a
Ugh degree of culture and an assured and
dignified background and social position.
Grandmother Le Roy born Stuyvesant
i was one of the great ladies of New York
society at a time when the Vanderbilts
were struggling to obtain a mere foothold
on the outside edge. Grandmother French
held a similar position, not only in this
country, but in England, where her oldest
daughter married Lord Cheyleemore, a
prominent land owner and statesman.
Naturally, therefore, young Mr. French
was born to wear the purple robes of this
aristocratic lineage, but, alas! they fitted
him very badly. Unfortunately, by the
time little Eddie French reached his tenth
birthday, Newport was on its way to the
Tery dogs. The period when Mrs. William
Aster, Mrs. August Belmont, mother of
August, O. H. P. and Perry; Mrs. Le Roy
and Mrs. French, queened it over the beau
tiful resort, was past All the dignity and
gracious charm of the days when the place
was really the queen city had been swal
lowed up by the circus methods of the Circus
Set, the set that swam In on the prosperity
waves of 1901-1909, when steel and copper
magnates were made, divorced and re-married
over Bight.
These multi-millionaires, having changed
their brogans for fine Russia leather,
their overalls for smart white flannels
and their old wives for new ones, flocked
tetc Newport during these years until
Americas
Most
Ansto-
cratic
Families
every habit of living,
every decency of
thought almost was
changed.
Suddenly the digni
fied aristocrats, as ex
emplified by the Le
Roys, the Frenches, the
Cadwaladers, the Rhine
landers. Lispenards and
de Forests, found them
selves engulfed by the
new tide. The older
members of these fam
ilies withdrew to them
selves and, having mag
nificent, tree -secluded
homes, let the Circus
Set sweep by on the outside.
The younger members of these old fami
lies, however, were necessarily caught in
the maelstrom, and young Mr. French is a
bright and shining example of what hap
pened to only too many of them.
One page of this phase of
Newport life closed with the
tragic death, at twenty years
of age, of the only son of one
of the families mentioned
above. He died the death of
a womout roue, and had not
drawn a sober breath from
the time he was fifteen.
Other pages were turned
when divorces and scandals
disrupted one family after an
other and luxury was
actually flagrant. There were
times when it seemed as
though every other mansion
on Bellevue avenue and the
Cliffs held either a scandal
or a wretched tragedy.
In this atmosphere young
Mr. French grew to manhood.
His father gave no thought to
him. As young Mr. French
himself has stated he was
caught In the whirlpool and
followed the primrose path
from his sixteenth year.
The Summer that Eddie
was fifteen his seventeen-year-old
sister, Julia, ran
away and married Jack Ger
aghty to get away from
Newport, so she said.
Julia's marriage was the
outstanding sensation of the
freedom.
Early this Spring things
things reached a climax in
young Mr. French's career,
and his mother, from wboo
he got his allowance, told him
he must either work or go to
college. He decided to enlist,
and Joined up for the Junior
Plattsburg.
Again his New York Ideals
interfered. He went to Cam
bridge in June for his exams and there
met, at a girl's apartment. Miss Lillian
Harrington, a telephone operator of Man
chester, N. H Mr. French proposed mar
riage, and within three days the deed was
done.
Of his honeymoon and his runaway bride
the whole world knows, and unknown de
tails are contained In the appended state
ment of the bridegroom. Verily, indeed, is
the child father to the man!
In the tanks Private French will have
his living and a dollar a day, no cham
pagne will color his life, and much of hi3
past will be literally sweated out of him.
Under the coating of sophistication plast
ered on him by his Newport association is
a firm layer of honest patriotism, and he
longs for a chance to play the man at
last
Newport, too, has been going through a
change of heart Her young men are not
providing food for scandal this Summer,
The Patriotic End
By Edward
S a boy I was always romantic, senti
mental and kind-hearted to every
body and everything, and there are
instances where these three traits have
led me to commit acts of indiscretion for
which I have later been sorry.
From the earliest Infancy I can recall I'
have always entertained a profound ad
miration for the working class and evinced
a desired preference for their friendship
and society to that of my own class. To
day I cannot count a man acquaintance in
the M00" whom I would consider a friend,
and I can mention many hundreds among
the working classes I hold as very dear
Young Mr. French and His Telephone Girl Wife Dur
ing Their Honeymoon. Above Is Mr. French
the Tank Uniform He Donned When
His Honeymoon Was Blasted.
but are fighting grimly In Flanders, or in
some mysterious place spoken of as Just
"somewhere In France." Dinner conversa
tions in Newport this Summer are entirely
"fit to print" and one hears war news dis
cussed rather than the inner details of
some scandal.
Mrs. Le Roy French will not receive her
daughter-in-law. The only contingency
that could soften her attitude toward her
son's wife would be the birth of a child.
And this is practically beyond the wildest
thought It is a curious thing that not
one of this generation of the Frenches
have had any children. Eddie's older sis
ter, Pauline, who married Samuel Wag
staff ten years ago, is childless, and so are
the Jack Geraghtys. It may very possi
bly be that the unfortunate French family
will die out which would be perhaps a
lasting pity, for with this generation would
end the splendid traditions of half a dozen
splendid American families.
of My Elopement
Tuck French.
friends and whose friendship Is worth
having.
As to the girls. It goes without saying,
their friendship Is worth but little to me
I have always liked sincerity and hate
affectation of any sort But among the
clement I have been brought up with there
is little else.
My mother and grandmother, both of
whom I reverence, are of a different cu
from the average person in their position.
So I except them, of course, from the gen
eral criticism I tender Newport society.
They are not any fonder of the silly "Get
Rich Quick Wallingford" crowd, lately very
Copyright 1918. by Star Company.
JBLSJig - pjBflh have secured their prominence by genuine
yB5Po'rVwv'-r' i. j thls coantry) 1 naTe- as 1 naTe stated
Jtl Kv V - m lonS sInce cea3ed to admire their charac-
Njr SKy v fcBtffcGl t eristics or to particularly enjoy their
tSfi SBJfct. JP HKSN as I crew up, this emptiness and ase-
numerous at Newport than I am, for they
both come of tho real old Puritan and
Dutch stock, Peter Stuyvesant being an
apt example of the Stnyresant LeRoy ante
cedents, and they hold aloof from the "nou
veaux riches," retiring only with their own
friends, who themselves are by their own
worth and generations of old stock accept
able to them.
No, I refer to the type of society, who,
on account of sudden accession to wealth,
have squeezed into the "400," and now call
themselves American society .and ape the
manners and customs of this old, genuine
aristocracy with such unenviable soccese
that their affectations, if not disgusting,
would be pathetic.
Thus having naturally been brought
Into contact with this extraordinary groaj
of people (for there are few people who
Great Britain Rights Reserved.
Julia, Who Made Such Heroic Efforts to Rectify the Latter Elopement
j $ Born.
And as I matured these ideas clung to
me. They were only strengthened by my
sister Julia's elopement in 1911. and at the
time I was the enly member of the fasailr
who wrote both her and her husband, hold
ing out to them my heartiest congratula
tions. I didn't have the favor returned at
the time of my marriage, bat this Is aside
from the point
I was subject naturally enoogh, la
Newport to many temptations which at
such a youthful age I ought not even to
have been aware of, and thus following
the example of things I saw and heard of
going on before my eyes. I became a man
before I was really a boy.
And then I determined to break away
from all this senseless gayety and empty
life, and enter the service of my country,
lnuus great struggle for civilisation
Mrs. Elsie
French
Vanderbilt,
Aunt of Young
Mr. Edward .
and His
Sister
against an insane ruler, and I enlisted In
the Junior Plattsbsrg last Jane, expecting
to go off to camp on the 20th of that month.
At the time I was boarding la Cambridge,
taking ftTarag at Harvard and preparing
to leave for camp within a few days.
Then the thing happened!
At & girl's apartment in Cambridge I
met Miss Lillian Harrington. From the
start I thought she was the most attractive
and dearest girl I had ever met and 1
ham met a good many and I thought she
Mkd me too. She Impressed me as being
especially high-strung, for she was unable
to sit quietly for a minute at a time, and
I liked her for it We all dined at the
Georgian, her friend and a friend of mine.
That night Miss Harrington was rather
111, and as her friend was to go 'away ay
night train I engaged a room at the Essex
Hotel for her and saw to it personally that
she was well taken care of. After a two
day visit at Newport to my family I re
tained to Cambridge and again met Miss
Harrington, this time the night before I
went to camp, and at dinner I proposed to
her.
We tried o get married that night, bat
failed. We started from the Essex the
first thing Friday morning, secured oar
license, and the rest of the proceedings are
w known.
I ioved my wife I bettered I worshipped
her, and I never could understand the rea
son she left me the first tune Immediately
after the family lawyer had said la her
presence that I wag to have no money.
When we got to New Haven the first
night of our honeymoon Mrs. French
wouldn't go down to the restaurant to have
dinner with me. but went to bed. as she
was very tired, and requested me to bring
up graham crackers for her. Subsequently,
I believe, she said I fed her "animal crack
ers," but these stories are so foolish no
person can credit them.
The second time Mrs. French left me I
admit she was Justified in so doing tem
porarily, although our lunch party had
been a mutual one. enjoyed by all. Bat
she should have returned, and I went on
to the quiet little village, secured for us
bout rooms and waited affectionately to
hear that Tot would come oat I believe
she loved me and would, of coarse, return.
Then the hoars and days turned into weeks
and I had no word of any kind from her,
aUhoagh I wrote her many letters !m pter
ins her to return. Not one was answered
and I was not forgiven.
I stopped writing her then and totd my
attorney that as she didn't intend to meet
me half way I would try to forget her and
go Into the army tanks.
And I was accepted, passed and am
about to go. I em eager to get to Borope
and in the excitement of battle forget all
this.
While I do not wish to be too hard on
my wife. I must say I can see that I have
been treated rather shabbily, in
lag Tot I gladly gave op my family aid
only wanted her. and because of one after
noon's indiscretion Tot shoold not have
forgotten that past and so readily have
left me.
I am now without family or wife!
I wish to depart from the public eye
for all time, but before doing so I want to
say these few words of explanation. And
I now bid you good-bye. I am off for tho
wonderful tanks and France.
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